Main menu

You are here

Sandusky woman to display 50-year-old blanket

SANDUSKY
Elida Stevens created a masterpiece with nothing but some cotton, needles and a stamp.

JACOB LAMMERS

May 24, 2010

SANDUSKY

Elida Stevens created a masterpiece with nothing but some cotton, needles and a stamp.

Fifty years ago, Stevens crafted a bedspread depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe for her mother in time for Mother's Day.

Stevens, 63, displayed the bedspread in Holy Angels Catholic Church prior to Saturday's procession of The Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Sandusky.

Stevens was inspired to create the bedspread after she saw a postage stamp of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Mexican symbol of the Virgin Mary.

"Everybody had a present except me," Stevens said. "I saw this picture of Guadalupe as big as a postage stamp, and I thought 'That's what I'll do. I'll make her a picture of Jesus' mother.'"

When she was a child, Stevens worked in the fields alongside her parents in Kindred, N.D. Since she and her family did not have a lot of money, Stevens relied on her skill to create the bedspread.

She worked every evening for seven days to finish the bedspread after working eight hours in the fields during the day. Incredibly enough, Stevens had never learned how to crochet and created the bedspread without any tracings or plans.

When she presented the gift to her mother for Mother's Day, the reaction she got was unexpected.

"Her first question was 'Where did you take it from?'" she said. "My mother was just shocked. She didn't know what to say."

Stevens later married and moved to Deshler, Ohio, in 1962. She now lives in Sandusky.

The bedspread remained in her mother's possession until her mother died recently.

"I was shocked when she told me she still had it," Stevens said. "My mother was dying, and she told me I did it, so I should keep it."

The cotton bedspread is still in good condition and is kept in a drawer when not on display.

Stevens said she plans to keep the bedspread to remind her of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her own mother.

"I am a person that believes in God a lot," she said. "Our Lady of Guadalupe has always been important to me because of my beliefs."